1. Field of the Invention
The invention, in general, relates to automatic ice making systems and more particularly to such an ice-maker that is both more reliable and less expensive to manufacture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 2,717,497 issued to C. J. Knerr and U.S. Pat. No. 3,299,656 issued to W. J. Linstromberg et al disclose prior art icemakers of the type to which the present invention relates. These icemakers generally include separately housed parts that are both located in position and held together by screws. It has been found that such housing construction leads to loose tolerances with respect to the location of various parts of the drive and control mechanisms that are attached to and journaled in the housing, and that such loose location tolerances lead directly to stresses on the driving and driven parts that have caused breakage in the prior art and resulted in manufacturers using relatively heavy gear trains. U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,105 shows a method of holding a motor to a timer assembly using a U-shaped bracket and rivets which pass through eyelets in ears attached to the motor assembly housing. Such an assembly, whether using rivets, screws, or mounting posts, also results in relatively loose tolerances with respect to the location of the various parts of the drive train as compared to the present invention.
In icemakers it is common at the factory or in the field to manually rotate the control mechanism much faster than the motor drives it in order to test the timing functions over a short time period. This operation places stresses on the motor and gears that also has caused the manufacturers of prior art icemakers to use heavy gearing. While it is known to use a one-way clutch in timers to provide for manual rotation of the control mechanism independent of the motor--see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,015 issued to Macello Bertozzi et al.--, such one-way clutches have not been used in icemakers.